More than £30,000 has been raised in just a week from a share offer aimed at bringing Plymouth’s former Millennium nightclub and cinema building back into use as a music venue and business hub.
After just seven days, 10% of the minimum target has been met with 55 investors already backing the ambitious project. Most have bought shares for the minimum £50 required, but some have paid more, including one business which has invested £10,000.
With 48 days to go until the offer, on the Crowdfunder platform, closes, , the social enterprise which bought the vast Union Street building in 2020, is delighted with the early success.
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Wendy Hart, co-founder and director of Nudge, said: “We were blown away by receiving £25,000 in the first three days. And it is a city-wide response. If we get enough people to invest £50 it all adds up.”
The shares went on sale to the public on October 11in a bid to raise up to £520,000 for the regeneration of the vast former nightclub and cinema building.
Nudge would be happy with £500,000 but the appeal must hit £285,000 by December 6, 2021, to continue. Up to £70,000 can be pledged by each individual investor and the shares promise a return of 3.6%.
The Crowdfunder page can be found here:
Nudge is working with partners at London-based workspace developer Eat Work Art, which has already renovated run-down buildings in London and Plymouth, to bring the enormous pile back into use.
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Nudge bosses have said the first businesses could be operating from the building by mid-2022 as work continues on creating a music venue in the main auditorium. The overall project could cost up to £4m.
Nudge said that by raising £500,000 of community share investment it would enable the repayment of money borrowed to buy the building and also go towards having the ground floor of the gigantic pile in use by 2022.
It is planning a phased development:
Phase 1: The main ground floor space will be repaired and servicing provided to allow for independent businesses with a focus on suitable commercial uses that complement the wider ambitions for the building and create local jobs.
Phase 2: The front portion of the ground floor will be given over to public-facing uses, such as independent makers or a public art gallery and servicing the wider building with toilets, etc.
Nudge said the first floor ancillary space is ideally suited to daytime use as a café, serving the public and tenants renting work-spaces below; whilst in the evening this would become a bar that serves the main auditorium.
The existing auditorium will be repaired and sympathetically renovated, being careful to retain the layers of history reflected in the building fabric. This is capable of providing a 1,500 capacity music venue “something which Plymouth sorely lacks”.
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Phase 3: The top floor is linked to the café space via the south eastern staircase and so could form part of the same use, alternatively it could offer an opportunity for a landmark venue.
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Business Live's South West Business Reporter is William Telford. William has more than a decade's experience reporting on the business scene in Plymouth and the South West. He is based in Plymouth but covers the entire region.
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Nudge said it needs the investment because it was supported in its purchase of the building by the charitable Rank Foundation, which has a long association with the building from its cinema days, and Power to Change, the organisation supporting hundreds of community businesses across the country.
Nudge said the community share offer creates “collective ownership” and is a user-friendly name for withdrawable, non-transferable share capital, which is unique to co-operative and community benefit societies.
Nudge, which said people should “only invest what you can afford”, is a Community Benefit Society created in 2017 and run by residents living in Stonehouse, with a mission to upgrade the once notorious Union Street into “a street the whole world loves”.
It said it has already made a “real visible difference to the street, running The Clipper, for which it raised £206,000 from more than 150 investors, The Plot, Union Corner and pop-up street activity.